NYSD memories

posted by John Winn

When my father retired from playing cricket in the (and his) early fifties we would occasionally spend Saturday afternoons watching NYSD cricket at Feethams, the home of both Darlington cricket and football clubs at that time. Darlington CC still play there and are the trustees of the land on which the stands and pitch of DFC used to stand. It will be nine years next week since The Quakers played the last league game there and the ground today shows what nature can do in a relatively short time if left alone. A sad sight, especially given the dire situation the club finds itself in, saddled with a stadium that typically is filled to little more than 5% of its capacity.

 Darlington were arguably the strongest team in the NYSD league in the fifties, for in the ten years beginning in 1950 they were champions three times, runners up twice and their lowest placing was fourth..For much of this time their professional was Paul Carey, who had played for his native Sussex and he represented Durham on a number of occasions.During his seven year professional career at Feethams he took 371 wickets at an average of 12.56. Another prominent player during this era was opening batsman John Camburn, . He was a Maths and PE teacher at Darlington Grammar School and it was a thrill for those of us involved in cricket at the school to have such a player as the master i/c of the sport.

Promotion and relegation came late to the NYSD, for more than 100 years elapsed from the founding of the league in 1892 until in 1997 automatic movement of one club in each direction between divisions was introduced and this was extended to two up, two down in 2011. The effect of these changes has seen an influx of new clubs into the top division (from 2012 an ECB Premier league), clubs like Marton, Stokesley, Richmond and Great Ayton. Long established members like Bishop Auckland, Darlington RA and Redcar have,for the time being at least slipped into the second tier.Not surprisingly virtually all last week's games in the league were washed out and a repetiton seems likely this Saturday. Last years champions Marton are expected to do well again with ex-Yorkshire player Lee Hodgson in their squad.
Whist we are in that part of the world it seems appropriate to mention a son of Great Ayton, Harry Pearson. Pearson is most likely to be known to readers for his book 'Slipless in Settle' which won the 2011 Cricket Society and MCC book of the year. Pearson has contributed the review of books for this year's Wisden and tucked away on page 146 are his comments on two  books 'Say Cheese' and 'Cuckoos and Moonrakers' by our very own Peter Davies. Pearson describes the Cricket Heritage Project as 'an altogether excellent endeavour with a splendid website'. Mentioned in Wisden, blimey!